Feng Mian, who was sleeping peacefully after eating a juicy grub, suddenly woke up. He could feel the blood inside of him boil....
'What now.. am I going through a cultivation deviation?' with the measly amount of spiritual energy that remained in his body he checked his conditions.
As expected, his body lost all of his cultivation, but there was something surprising as well.
His flesh and bones were without any kind of contamination of any kind of miasma.
'This is a 'pure meridian body!!! oh dear lord, is that what they call is nirvana rebirth is!!! Shit, I have stuck gold. With this body I can cultivate even faster than before!!' he secretly giggled in glee.
The fire had burned his meridians and his nerve unblocking all the bad stuff from his body.
Wren, who was watching this weird expression, frowned. 'Did this bird lose its brain when it was dropped from its nest... what is with that expression?'
Sighing, he walked over to his temporary house he had created using the coconut leaves and some logs.
He started a fire and roasted the sea cucumber he had caught earlier. It tasted gammy and salty, but it was something too sustainable. His dried octopus stash was depleting fast, so he had to make so with what he could find.
"I have to move into the forest more..." he mumbled as he munched through the charred thing.
Feng Mian watched him with a frown. 'Thank god he got me a grub, I bet that thing is not even edible....' he moved closer to him and hopped onto his folded leg. 'Kid, don't eat things like this. It will cause you stomach ache...'
But his word only came out as chirps which wren wrongly interpreted as hunger again. He shoved a small worm he found nearby with a long sigh.
"Seriously birdie. How much do you eat? Look at you. You are as fat as a naked chicken. I bet you taste good as a chicken too," he mumbled, pulling at its meaty legs.
'You bastard!!! I am a phoenix, not a chicken!!!! And I am not FAT!!!!' Feng Mian continued his secret attack.
Wren got used to this. He petted the bird, chuckled loudly. "Okay, okay, I won't complain about your eating habits. After all, you are a baby. I heard babies eat a lot..." he pulled the bird close and tugged at his featherless wings.
"But when will you get your feathers? It has already been almost eleven days since I found you, yet you have no improvement at all."
Feng Mian's who was pecking at him forcefully stopped instantly. The man's words were indeed a fact. He stretched his own wings and glanced at the pink skin. 'Why am I not getting my plumes? Did I get bald due to the flames? Will I end up being a bald phoenix!!!!!'
His figure stumbled down and laid flat on the sandy ground. 'Bald phoenix... bad phoenix... that sounds so bad~~~'
Seeing the bird's reaction, wren chuckled softly. "Hey, I bet you are just a little late. In a few more days you will be getting all your baby feathers and in a month or so you will be soaring up in the sky."
The bird sat up and nodded at him. 'Yes.... I am a great phoenix. How can the heavenly flames render me bald? It's entirely not possible.'
Qu Wren found all of the bird's action to be so funny. He enjoyed watching its expression go from sad to awe to proud... in just a few seconds.
'Hachin definitely would have loved this little thing..' he thought as his smile melted away.
When they were just children, his father once brought back a human book. It was fully enclosed with a magic so that it can survive underwater.
It was a small colouring book depiction various creatures of the human world.
{"I like this," Hachin had pointed to a tall bird.
"That's an eagle, dear," his father lovingly corrected him.
"I want an eagle too..." little Hachin happily ran around with that small mural of an eagle. He even slept with it until he was ten summers old. }
Just thinking about these memories brought tears into his eyes. He swiftly wiped them away. "This is not the time to cry and whine. I have to find him or else.... he might be in grave danger.. That poor kid does not even know much about the human world."
He rolled himself into a ball, hugging his own knees. Silent sob racked through his body.
Feng Mian watched this with a sigh. 'This kid has been searching for someone for a long time. I wonder who ditched him and ran off.'
He hopped closer and gently tugged at his sleeve. 'Don't cry for this, kid.'
"Are you trying to 'sob' comfort me?" wren softy whispered, pulling the bird close.
"Chirp?"
"I guess you are an intelligent eagle..." he hugged the small pink bird close and sleept fitfully.
Feng Mian on the other hand nuzzled, against him. This beast had the warmest body he had even felt. The warmth was quite similar to his mum. 'I wonder how this guy is so hot.'